Contemporary story
On

High and Lifted Up

It was a windy day.

The mailman barely made it to the front door. When the door opened, Mrs. Pennington said, "hello", but, before she had a real chance to say "thank you", the mail blew out of the mailman's hands, into the house and the front door slammed in his face. Mrs. Pennington ran to pick up the mail.

"Oh my," she said.

Tommy was watching the shutters open and then shut, open and then shut.

"Mom," he said, "may I go outside?"

"Be careful," she said. "It's so windy today."

Tommy crawled down from the window-seat and ran to the door. He opened it with a bang. The wind blew fiercely and snatched the newly recovered mail from Mrs. Pennington's hands and blew it even further into the house.

"Oh my," she said again. Tommy ran outside and the door slammed shut.

Outside, yellow, gold, and red leaves were leaping from swaying trees, landing on the roof, jumping off the roof, and then chasing one another down the street in tiny whirlwinds of merriment.

Tommy watched in fascination.

"If I was a leaf, I would fly clear across the world," Tommy thought and then ran out into the yard among the swirl of colors.

Mrs. Pennington came to the front porch.

"Tommy, I have your jacket. Please put it on."

However, there was no Tommy in the front yard.

"Tommy?"

Tommy was a leaf. He was blowing down the street with the rest of his play-mates.

A maple leaf came close-by, touched him and moved ahead. Tommy met him shortly, brushed against him, and moved further ahead. They swirled around and around, hit cars and poles, flew up into the air and then down again.

"This is fun," Tommy thought.

The maple leaf blew in front of him. It was bright red with well-defined veins. The sun-light shone through it giving it a brilliance never before seen by a little boy's eyes.

"Where do you think we are going?" Tommy asked the leaf.

"Does it matter?" the leaf replied. "Have fun. Life is short."

"I beg to differ," an older leaf said suddenly coming beside them. "The journey may be short, but the end is the beginning."

Tommy pondered this the best a leaf could ponder.

"Where do we end up?"

←2

"If the wind blows you in that direction," the old leaf said, "you will end up in the city dump."

"I don't want that," Tommy said.

"If you are blown in that direction, you will fly high into the air and see things that no leaf has seen before."

"Follow me to the city dump," the maple leaf said. "Most of my friends are there."

The wind blew Tommy and the maple leaf along. Tommy thought of his choices. He wanted to continue to play.

"Okay," Tommy said, "I will go with you to the dump."

The winds shifted and Tommy and the leaf were blown in the direction of the city dump.

The old leaf didn't follow. He was blown further down the block and suddenly lifted up high into the air.

"Hey," he called out, "the sights up here. They are spectacular. Come and see."

Tommy and the maple leaf ignored him.

"I see something. I see the dump." The old leaf cried out. "I see smoke. Come up here. I see fire."

"I see nothing," the maple leaf said.

Tommy saw the fence that surrounded the city dump. He was happy to be with his friend. They would have fun in the dump.

Suddenly, a car pulled up. It was Tommy's mom. Mrs. Pennington wasn't about to let her little boy run into the city dump.

"Not so fast," she said getting out of the car. "You are not allowed to play in there. Don't you see the smoke?"

Tommy watched the maple leaf blow against the wall and struggle to get over. He ran over to get it but was unable to reach it.

Mrs. Pennington walked over and took the leaf. She put it in her pocket.

"There," she said, "it will be safe until we get home."

Tommy smiled, ran to the car and got in. He rolled down the back window and looked up into the sky. He wondered where the old leaf had gone. Perhaps one day he would see what the old leaf had seen - perhaps.

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Average: 5 (3 votes)

Comments

Submitted by admin on Thu, 09/04/2008 - 18:28

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i am on here looking for stories to read to my brother and sister. i agree that it is beautifully written, but it is a tad confusing. im going to go with something simpler, but this is a beautiful story.

Submitted by admin on Sun, 09/07/2008 - 23:22

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this story doesnt have an ending. i feel like i was left hanging b/c there were no real transitions in it. it just jumped from one thing to the next. i thought there was going to some type of moral to the story that i could share with my students, but this ended horribly.

Submitted by admin on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 19:14

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great story

Submitted by admin on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 05:48

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i thought that high and lifted up was really interesting and adventurous and quit fantastic to read about but i would of thought it would be improved and make it have more interesting discriptive about things that are going on in the story but other than that i thought the story was great

Submitted by admin on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 05:53

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I dont like this story very much because it isnt that much of a childrens story and i am very dissapointed .......
and i like one thing i love reading short storys only because i get board of it and this story was just not for me because it was soooooooooooooo boaring.

Submitted by admin on Sat, 10/18/2008 - 14:28

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I read this story with my 5th grade daughter and I thought it had a great approach to seeing life as an adventure. At the end of the story I asked my daughter, "Which way has the winds taken you?" I love the story.

Submitted by admin on Sun, 10/19/2008 - 10:29

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well i suppose its ok but the thing was it didnt seem as good because it didnt build much tention or seem real mainly beacause of the fact that if the wind was as heavy as it was the mother would NOT have let her son out.................

Submitted by admin on Sat, 11/01/2008 - 21:12

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I loved the idea behind this story. I do feel though that the written piece doesnt flow as well as it could. On a number of occassions I was forced to leave the flow of text and reexamine previous sentences to establish my position.

I think this maybe due to the length of the piece which feels (to me at least) to be shorter than perhaps the story justifies.

Still very enjoyable thought!

Submitted by admin on Mon, 12/08/2008 - 10:18

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I am a University student reading short stories as part of my course for Creative Writing.

I thought this story was okay. It was very short, which is fine (sometimes its refreshing to read a shorter story). It was a nice idea to show Tommy as a leaf, however, Im assuming he was only pretending to be one; that or his mother can tell when her son is a leaf. The description was quite good, however, Im affraid I agree with some of the others- it didnt grab me in with apprehention for what was to come. I wanted to read on, but it could have swept me away (forgive the pun) better than it did.
Also, this is put under childrens stories, yet the vocab is rather advanced for a child to read. I am curious as to the age group...

I hope my feedback was useful. Hopefully, I shall be putting some stories up on here.

Sarah Bell

Submitted by admin on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 05:32

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We read this as a class and in general thought that although it had some great description and imagination the story was confusing in parts. Some pupils found it amusing whilst others boring. One idea was that the old leaf was a little like the wise old owl in Winnie the Pooh. Generally the story is suitable for younger children.

Class 8
Mrs A

Submitted by admin on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 00:04

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I could be reading too much into this story:
but I really liked it because it was not only fun to read but it was also a great parable about life; when we are younger we want to jsust have fun and be with our friends and somtimes if we do not choose our friends well they lead us to an awful way of life( the city dump) but if we listen to those who are older than us we are able to live a long time and experience beautiful things. And our parents(or God)is/ are there to pick us up when we start following the wrong winds.

It was a little confusing
but very enjoyable for both children and adults.

Submitted by admin on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 05:31

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Read this story with a different class of same aged pupils. generally they thought this story is great for younger imaginative children although many found it quite confusing. Alot of loose ends was also something that pupils mentioned. Felt that mum could have had more part in the story. Some good description.

Mrs A Class 9

Submitted by admin on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 14:04

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:)

Submitted by admin on Wed, 03/11/2009 - 08:56

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I have just read this story and It was a great story, I think. we can take lesson from this. first, we can apply the style of story in teaching children in order to develop their imagination. next, we could teach them to keep our environment. and of course, to be careful to do everything in our life.

Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 04:09

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Im pretty sure most children wont get
it, but it has a good message. Someone
earlier said it best "a great parable
about life; when we are younger we want
to jsust have fun and be with our
friends and somtimes if we do not
choose our friends well they lead us to
an awful way of life( the city dump)
but if we listen to those who are older
than us we are able to live a long time
and experience beautiful things. And
our parents(or God)is/ are there to
pick us up when we start following the
wrong winds. "

Submitted by admin on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:47

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It was a good story but as stated before, it was confusing in parts. I dont think it would be great for young children but maybe 11-13 year olds. The ending was quite confusing because i didnt get how he turned back to his normal self as soon as the mum came in...? Good story and some BRILLIANT description!
:)
x

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